[gamerates]

If they are going to commit suicide, I'd of course try to convince them not to and provide them all the help they can get. It's not really a proper analogy as there is a healthier way to have sex (even if you think it is immoral) and it's hard to find a healthy way to commit suicide as it involves the termination of your health.

However, if they do commit suicide, and they proposed that they wanted to do it by blowing themselves up on a schoolbus; or doing it peacefully alone at their house; I'd be much more against the schoolbus example as it takes other lives with it (and thus is less healthy to society). I'd say I think suicide is a terrible thing, do everything I could to help or convince them otherwise, but ultimately if someone really wants to kill themselves they can and will. I'd advise them that if they are going to do it, they should hurt as little people in the process as possible. I think not telling them that suicide bombing is worse than suicide alone in your home would be rather immoral. As much as I need to convince them not to commit suicide, I need to convince them almost more they shouldn't commit suicide and in the process kill other people.

To make the analogy fit a bit better we are going to assume that the person having sex and the person who wants to commit suicide aren't suffering from some psychological disorder (which puts both situations on a bit different grounds).

Also remember having sex with condoms is equivalent of trying to commit suicide with a gun that has a very very very low percentage of killing you (I'd argue driving your car to work has a much higher percentage of killing you, than having safe sex, where you and your partners are responsible and get tested regularly for STD's) and sex brings with it pleasurable benefits that suicide does not.

So in review, poor analogy.

[dominik]

Excellent dissection of my analogy.

I think where we differ is that I'd argue to the theoretical friend that she should not commit suicide, and I wouldn't try the 'in the alternative, if you do decide to kill yourself at least don't kill anyone else' reasoning, if only because I would feel that it would undermine my main point of fervently trying to dissuade her from committing suicide.

[jacquesm]

So, that was exactly my point wasn't it. If they are going to do it anyway then make sure they do it in the best way possible, which is to use a condom. But the Catholic viewpoint as made public by the holy see on down is that you should not be using condoms, period. Whether or not that is pre- or extra- marital does not enter in to the question.

My take on that is because this is simply a way to offset the ratio of Catholics : non-Catholics, if you forbid the Catholics to use condoms then in the long term there will be more of them. I'm not sure how that tallies with being 'pro life', because if you really were 'pro life' then those lives at risk from infection would count just as much or more as those lives not yet conceived.

[gamerates]

Understandable, that's why there is the debate about teaching kids about condoms in school. Does teaching them about sex education and condom usage undermine the argument that you shouldn't have sex? I feel like at least here we can look at some scientific data to reach a conclusion (that with the suicide example, we wouldn't be able to).

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3071001/ "In a study of 35 sex education programs around the world, the World Health Organization found there is no evidence that comprehensive programs encourage sexual activity.

The study also concluded that abstinence-only programs are less effective than comprehensive classes that include abstinence and safe-sex practices such as contraception and condom use."

At the same time it reminds me of a scene from the movie "Mean Girls" a comedy about the American High School where the gym teacher (who somehow in most high schools is also the "health teacher") uncomfortably states:

"Don't have sex, because you will get pregnant and die! Don't have sex in the missionary position, don't have sex standing up, just don't do it, OK, promise? OK, now everybody take some rubbers."

However, if having sex puts you at a high risk of infinite punishment forever (instead of infinite reward forever) it sort of changes the argument which is why the two sides have difficulty even discussing the topic. It's also why there are claims that after more and more studies show that sex education doesn't increase promiscuity (but it does reduce STD and teen/unwanted pregnancy rates), and the documented failures of abstinence only education, that even then many Christian groups will always say the studies are flawed. This is because the question was never open to debate in the first place, it was a divine infalliable law and we just need to keep running the tests until we get the predetermined correct answer. That's sort of where I see people arguing that many Christian groups are opposed to science. They love science, as long as it agrees with them (the same can we said for many secular liberals as well as Larry Summers found out).

I also think the Catholic church will reverse it's position on contraception for married couples within my lifetime. They sort of semi already have the steps to do that when they endorsed Natural Family Planning (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_family_planning)

"Having sex at an infertile time in a woman's life (such as pregnancy or post-menopause) is also considered acceptable, since the infertile condition is considered to be created by God, rather than as an act by the couple." (http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/docume...)

I always thought that was rather arbitrary that you could have sex for pleasure only, but only during infertile times to prevent pregnancy, which we can measure rather accurately today due to advanced technology that we couldn't do very well in the past, because that's part of the human cycle and thus part of God's plan. However, doing the exact same sex-for-pleasure while preventing pregnancy act by using a piece of technologically simple latex that also protects against STI's is an awful sin.

However, due to the vast pluralism of viewpoints in society and our governments responsibility to not endorse any set religion, they suppose to consider the heaven/hell side of the argument in it's policy decisions. It should of course allow others to consider it independently, and thus we have an opt-out program with our sex education.